Eight reasons the Australian heatwave is not “climate change”

Eight reasons why this current heatwave is a boring, overhyped example of weather being used for political purposes.

1. It’s the long term trends that matter — not a few weeks of hot weather

As climate scientists keep telling us (except when they have a heatwave to milk), ”weather is not climate”. It’s the long term trends that matter. One short four week period is not a long term climate trend, but it is an excellent opportunity to create hype and scaremongering in the newspapers. Scientists with little scruple and low standards are making the most of this.

2. The “records” we are breaking are pitifully short

Even if this is the hottest heatwave “ever recorded”, it doesn’t mean much in the long term scheme of things. Natural climate cycles work on scales of 11 years, 60 years, 200 years, 1500 years, and 100,000 years. We have decent temperature records for many locations for only 50 years. We have a scratchy patchy thermometer record for 150 years. Any scientist raving about breaking a 50 year record as if it means something is … embarrassing. There is too much noise in this system and too little data.

3. If a few weeks of extreme heat suggest CO2 is causing a catastrophe, then don’t a few weeks of Siberian record breaking cold suggest the opposite?

5. Heatwaves have happened before many times, and there’s no long term increase

Since 1890 our BOM records show that there have been many clusters of five hot days in Sydney and Melbourne. This summer has been bog-standard and ordinary. Thanks to Geoff Sherrington for the idea and the number crunching on these graphs.

Melbourne‘s highest 5 day average is 32 (ending on 7th Jan). (It’s not even on the chart!)

Heatwaves in January in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia

6. Global temperatures have been increasing for 300 years

Given that our data is shorter than that, it is entirely predictable that we will set “new records” even though the climate is now cooler than it was 5,000 years ago, 130,000 years ago and for most of the history of life on Earth. Our records are short (point 2) the trends are not unusual (point 7) and we aren’t certain what caused the world to start warming circa 1700, but it wasn’t due to CO2. Not too many air-conditioners or SUV’s in King William III’s time.

7. The world is not warming any faster now that it was 140 years ago

Decadal warming trends peaked at about 0.16C three times in the last 150 years. Right now it’s less (close to zero). In other words, current trends could be entirely natural. The world was warming faster in 1870 than it is now. Shouldn’t all that CO2 be increasing the rate?

8. People are mixing up cause and effect. Any cause of warming will … cause heatwaves.

Shock us. Just because the world has warmed does not mean it was caused by CO2. If other things were warming the planet, they would cause heatwaves too. (Possible causes include but are not limited too: the solar-magnetic effect, cloud cover changes, or ocean current shifts. Heck it could be aliens with ray guns… the planet will warm.) This is the banal, bleedingly obvious inference any scientist (or graduate of primary school) would make.

What heatwave? This summer has been mild compared to many others in my 27 years living in Victoria. The last six summers were so cool and wet, the BOM and CSIRO recently released a scientific report assuring us that global warming and climate change were still happening.

I have even longer memories of living in Sydney and this summer is yet another mild and wet one compared to those of my youth. I remember “long, hot summers”, something we have not had in Sydney for about a decade now.

I suspect this is why most adults who have a functioning brain can see through the alarmist rhetoric. It is sad that so few speak out about the obvious deception.

It’s really only fringe extremists, or rent seekers with cushy government jobs and grants (like John Brookes) who are still promoting the global warming scam. Of course the media is still complicit because they are so thoroughly controlled by the globalist agenda.

If you follow the money you will find the majority of alarmists (Like John Brookes) are financially invested in perpetuating the lies.

“Today, I went to a rally in support of a price on carbon emissions in Australia. But at the rally, there are all sorts of greenies, and I don’t agree with lots of what they want. Some want Australia to be using only renewable energy by 2020. I just can’t see that happening, and its not consistent with a price on carbon anyway. You either put a price on carbon and let the market sort it out, or you regulate. You really shouldn’t do both.

Anyway, I guess if you want something to happen, you may have to ally with people who’s views you don’t share on other issues.”

[Brooksie comments here with his real name. His employment has nothing to do with this site. Please attack the message not the man. I encourage more people to use real names and I will defend those who do, preferentially snipping the anon v those with a reputation that matters. - Jo]

Regarding section 8: absolutely right!
Perhaps it’s worth adding a reminder about correlation for the ‘warmists’.
The existence of a statistically significant correlation cannot be taken as evidence of causality in relation to non-experimental data.
Need more be said?

Sydney has its hottest day since records began. Hobart has its hottest day since records began. Perth has its hottest December night since records began.

There is a lot more moisture in the atmosphere, and most of it seems to fall on Queensland these days.

Tasmania and New South Wales have had devastating bushfires this summer.

Now it might not be CO2 that is causing all this, but there is this theory that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths of radiation that may cause the surface of the earth to warm. This same theory suggests that the amount of moisture in the atmosphere will increase, exacerbating the warming (and falling on Queensland).

Its only a theory, but they’ve made some projections based on this theory, and they are doing *much* better than the predictions based on competing theories. Sure they aren’t perfect, but they are close enough to merit some respect.

Some crazily cautious people are even suggesting we look at reducing our CO2 emissions, because this theory says that things will get worse as CO2 levels rise.

But I say, “Nuts to them!”. Its all good. Just relax and enjoy a cold beer.

The interesting thing about Sydney’s highest temp was how quickly it all happened. The top temp of 45.8C was reached at 2:55pm.
Sydney Observatory AWS graph shows the following.

2:49 – 44.9C
2:59 – 44.7C

Therefore the temp rose 0.9C in 6 minutes and dropped 1.0C in 4 minutes. This would be due to the platinum wired electronic thermometer that can pick up changes in temp within seconds.
In 1939 (45.3C) they would not have been able to pick up any sudden rises and decreases in temp so we are really comparing different recording methods.

Also, there were more +35C days in Sydney between 1921 – 1950 than between 1981-2010 despite increasing UHI levels.

I can’t believe that the people at Sydney Obs would ‘fudge’ the record temp – just pointing out that it seems an odd spike which would not have been picked up (if there was a similar spike) in 1939.
And I agree with you – if we have been becoming warmer because of extra CO2 and UHI, we should have had many breaks to a record since 1939.

It’s good you understand that “might” “may” etc are not scientific words.

Yes, there are theories about CO2 and warming. There are contradictory theories. Personally, I have found the other theories to be at least as useful as the CO2 one. I find that climate is a concept way above even those “experts with peer-reviewed papers” pay grade. Trying to figure out what causes climate change is biting off more than we can ever possibly chew.

I am curious about those predictions that turned out better than other theories. To date, I find that CO2 really doesn’t correlate to much of anything. Of course, even if it did, correlation and causality are two very, very different things. It would be very interesting if I could find such data.

Yes, we do need to sit back and think long and hard before embracing a theory that would effectively return us to the stone age, cause massive wars and millions dying. You see, if we eliminate CO2 emissions by replacing coal with those pinwheels and silicone part-time energy sources, we lose jobs, electricity, etc. There’s just no way around it. This is a sure thing. Given the choice between a sure thing with using poor energy sources and a possible bad outcome with good energy sources, I pick the latter. Now, if we want to talk switching to nuclear……

“Sydney has its hottest day since records began. Hobart has its hottest day since records began. Perth has its hottest December night since records began.”

The United States recently experienced its greets snow cover ever, Europe and Asia are experiencing one of the coldest winters in history. So, John, why is warm weather an indicator of global warming and cold temperatures are not an indicator of global cooling?

“Now it might not be CO2 that is causing all this, but there is this theory that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths of radiation that may cause the surface of the earth to warm. This same theory suggests that the amount of moisture in the atmosphere will increase, exacerbating the warming (and falling on Queensland).”

The paper I cited above shows that the moisture is not increasing. Once again, your precious hypothesis is falsified!

“Its only a theory, but they’ve made some projections based on this theory, and they are doing *much* better than the predictions based on competing theories.”

You mean a falsified hypothesis? Not only was Hansen wrong, but he failed miserably and can do nothing more than to keep moving the goalpost and hope that nobody notices. In fact, a new paper shows that not only were the models wrong, but that they exaggerated! http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL053650/abstract

“Sure they aren’t perfect, but they are close enough to merit some respect.”

You will find that Cosmic rays have a lot more to do with controlling the weather than CO2. CO2 is but a minor player and just one of many factors that influence climate.

Not only are they (climate models) not perfect, they are absolute failures! No warming for 16 years when all the models forecast that we would see higher temps with less CO2 than there is now in the atmosphere! What a bunch of mindless drivel it is that you spit out, John!

Why can’t the amount of water vapor in the air be greater than 4%? The answer is because temperature sets a limit to how much water vapor can be in the air. Even in tropical air, once the volume of water vapor in the atmosphere approaches 4% it will begin to condense out of the air. The condensing of water vapor prevents the percentage of water vapor in the air from increasing.

“Sure they ain’t perfect, but they are close enough to merit some respect”. James Hansen.
………………………..
Go straight to the script of Dr Strangelove, where Air Force General Turgidson is in the Pentagon War Room with President Muffley just before a wayward nuclear bomb from an SAC B-52 is likely to trigger the Doomsday Machine and end Life on Earth.

Turgidson: The duty officer asked General Ripper to confirm the fact the he had issued the go code and he said, “Yes gentlemen, they are on their way in and no one can bring them back. For the sake of our country and our way of life, I suggest you get the rest of SAC in after them, otherwise we will be totally destroyed by red retaliation. My boys will give you the best kind of start, fourteen hundred megatons worth, and you sure as hell won’t stop them now. So let’s get going. There’s no other choice. God willing, we will prevail in peace and freedom from fear and in true health through the purity and essence of our natural fluids. God bless you all.” Then he hung up. We’re still trying to figure out the meaning of that last phrase, sir.

Muffley: There’s nothing to figure out General Turgidson. This man is obviously a psychotic.

Turgidson: Well, I’d like to hold off judgment on a thing like that, sir, until all the facts are in.

Muffley: (anger rising) General Turgidson, when you instituted the human reliability tests, you assured me there was no possibility of such a thing ever occurring.

Turgidson: Well I don’t think it’s quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip up sir.

This paper shows that there has been no increase in humidity in the US and contradicts your unsubstantiated claim that humidity is up. Gee wiz, John, maybe it is just a localized event in Australia?! You know, weather?

I know its an unfair tactic Eddy, but I went and looked at the paper:

Trends since 1947 indicate that the warming of temperatures has coincided with increases in dewpoints and a moistening of specific humidity. This moistening is especially pronounced during the summer in the Midwest. For the nation, trends in relative humidity show little change for the period 1947–2010, during which these data are more homogeneous.

Relative humidity is unchanged, which of course means that with rising temperatures there is more moisture in the atmosphere – at least for the period 1947 – now.

Nice try, John! You have committed a lie by omission. Here is the rest of the abstract that you quoted out of context:

Abstract
U.S. hourly surface observations are examined at 145 stations to identify annual and seasonal changes in temperature, dewpoint, relative humidity, and specific humidity since 1930. Because of numerous systematic instrument changes that have occurred, a homogeneity assessment was performed on temperatures and dewpoints. Dewpoints contained higher breakpoint detection rates associated with instrumentation changes than did temperatures. Temperature trends were tempered by adjusting the data, whereas dewpoints were unaffected. The effects were the same whether the adjustments were based on statistically detected or fixed-year breakpoints. Average long-term trends (1930–2010) indicate that temperature has warmed but that little change has occurred in dewpoint and specific humidity. Warming is strongest in spring. There is evidence of inhomogeneity in the relative humidity record that primarily affects data from prior to 1950. Therefore, long-term decreases in relative humidity, which are strongest in winter, need to be viewed with caution. Trends since 1947 indicate that the warming of temperatures has coincided with increases in dewpoints and a moistening of specific humidity. This moistening is especially pronounced during the summer in the Midwest. For the nation, trends in relative humidity show little change for the period 1947–2010, during which these data are more homogeneous. Moistening has occurred throughout the central United States while other regions have experienced drying. Urban-related warming and drying trends are present in the data, but their effect is minimal. Regional changes in land use and moisture availability are likely influencing trends in atmospheric moisture.

So, John, since temperatures have risen since the “ice age scare” of the 1970′s but humidity has not you are exposed as the CAGW cherry picking tool that you are!

No Eddy, you don’t get it. If relative humidity remains constant as temperatures rise, then the total amount of water in the atmosphere rises. This is what they say has happened for the last 60 odd years.

The averages of these seasonal trends are 0.20 C/decade and 0.07 hPa/decade which correspond to a specific humidity increase of 0.04 g/kg per decade and a relative humidity reduction of 0.5%/decade.

Eddy’s paper basically finds the same thing as Isaac but with a caution about the reliability about the RH decline.

As a basic principle described by Clausius-Clapeyron when the temperature of a gas increases its water carrying capacity increases; both RH and SH are actual measurements of water vapor but RH is a % of the potential carrying capacity of the water; if RH is declining as air temperature increases then the amplifying feedback mechanism from water relied on by AGW will be less than predicted.

“this same theory suggests that the amount of moisture in the atmosphere will increase, exacerbating the warming (and falling on Queensland).”

Interesting in that a while back this same theory suggested to Australia’s Chief Climate Commissioner that human emissions of CO2 were the cause not only of the then current lower than average rainfall but also of a discriminating sort of rain that would not deign to fill our dams. Amazing. Of course he was only echoing the widely held climate alarmist experts prognostications at the time.

Which sort of forces one to think that those alarmists with short term memories make it up as they go.

Some time ago Roy Spencer had an article on the constancy of the mass of Global (now there’s a word coined by alarmists to scare us they seem to be have forgotten) precipitation. From memory he did a calculation by summing the annual total world precipitation and wonder of wonders he found it was pretty constant. Flooding here, drought there and much the same elsewhere one year. Then change of locations next year and so on. Look it up it could help you understand the natural vagaries of climate here in Australia and elsewhere.

Yes John you know it all don’t you? Three warm records you quote and let’s all panic with alarm and destroy our lifestyle, our economy and move our kids back into the Stone Age. Why don’t you go to china, USA, Britain … And see how your warming is going there? I see the UK windmills and solar panels working overtime.

With the weather if you look hard enough there will be new records coming along all the time. But, creating biases in the way that the weather is assessed will lead to false positives. That is, claimed confirmation instances of human-caused global warming which are nothing of the sort. What is more important, but totally neglected, is a shortage of instances which contradict the predicted trends. On this basis, the unusually cold winters in the Northern Hemisphere are far more important than record temperatures in Australia. They contradict claims that winters will become less severe. Start explaining away these instances with excuses and the global warming hypothesis becomes non-falsifiable.
Another example you point to is the recent trend of Queensland becoming wetter. Three years ago it was generally believed that the long-term drought would continue. So the Wivenhoe Dam – built to hold back the water in case of extreme rainfall was full of water when the extreme rainfall came, as it does every generation or so.

I think it really is a bridge too far to link increased CO2 levels to climate change to extreme weather. The graphs from HadCRU at the start of this topic don’t show warming despite the undoubted increase in CO2. If increased CO2 was the only cause of climate change (whatever happened to global warming by the way, it seems to have been discarded. I wonder why) then surely there should be some noticeable effect on global temperatures. Interestingly the “extraordinarily” very wet winters in the UK are in fact no new phenomenon having occurred many times in the past. The recent wet winters seem due to a change in the jet stream. Is this change due to increased CO2 or to more moisture in the atmosphere or to something entirely different which has nothing whatsoever to the burning of fossil fuels? To quote Shakespeare “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. You might like to think on that occasionally.

You are not really interested in science but are very interested in writing little propaganda pieces on this sight. Why do I think this? Because whenever you express an opinion which I factually incorrect and shown to be so you simply FAIL TO RESPOND.

You don’t change your conclusions based on new information you JUST IGNORE IT.

The reality of climate change indeed! Yes! These are the author’s credentials to be writing on a blog about climate change.

Luke Freeman works in Digital Marketing at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The final realization must have been a real thrill up and down his leg. Oops, sorry, that was Chris Mathews describing his virtual orgasm over Obama one evening on MSNBC. These people get a nice warm feeling from the most remarkable things.

About John, I’m not sure but from his description of his responsibilities I don’t believe he actually teaches. He’s welcome to correct me if I’m wrong.

Cohenite,
That’s one of the surprising things on the graphs I made above. The hottest 5-day heat waves in January seem to be getting cooler over the years despite UHI. They do not seem to be getting hotter from GHG insofar as this method of analysis can indicate. There is too much noise in the daily data, as we know, to justify fitting a regression line. Same applies to Feb (data in prep) in Melbourne & Sydney. Any explanations from anyone to help me?

I live in Sydney. The two hottest days in my lifetime were New Year’s Day 2006 and January 13, 2013.

In 2006 it was 44.2C at Observatory Hill and 45.3C at Sydney Airport. The recorded temps in the city and airport that day were equal to or slightly higher than the normally hotter western suburbs.

On January 13 this year it was 45.8C at Observatory Hill and 46.4 at Sydney Airport. Similar to 2006, the recorded temperatures in the normally hotter western suburbs were actually less than Observatory Hill and the airport located on the coast.

It seems to me as the strong hot north westerly winds blew over the urban agglomeration (about 60 km of concrete, roof tiles, bitumen, car exhausts etc), the air picked up further heat. So it seems if we correct for UHI, 2013 may not have been a record at all despite all that CO2 emitted in the preceding 74 years. I wonder what will get recorded in the official data for climate records that day? Surely they wouldn’t adjust upwards for 2013?

Maybe you have something. I posted the following above to illustrate something happened on that day.
The top temp of 45.8C was reached at 2:55pm.
Sydney Observatory AWS graph shows the following.

2:49 – 44.9C
2:59 – 44.7C

Therefore the temp rose 0.9C in 6 minutes and dropped 1.0C in 4 minutes. This would be due to the platinum wired electronic thermometer that can pick up changes in temp within seconds.
In 1939 (45.3C) they would not have been able to pick up any sudden rises and decreases in temp so we are really comparing different recording methods.

Well, CO2 has 2 tiny absorption bands in IR, not nearly enough to be dominant in atmospheric heating. Now, water has quite large IR absorption halo, that why it’s most important greenhouse gas. But since CO2 has no influence on warming, so it has no influence on water amount in atmosphere. In addition, warming cannot cause water vapor concentration increase indefinitely, since because of hydrogen bonds, water just LOVES to condensate. And when water changes its phase this takes lots of energy, causing COOLING! In other words – nature regulates itself! So yes – relax and enjoy your beer.

Ah, about that heatwave – Sydney just enjoying cold wave and 2 days (to date) of almost constant rain…

John Brookes – How about this: Crazily “cautious” (there are other motives at play) people are advocating and succeeding in having governments spend billions of dollars. Do you think that this is a good thing on the strength of what clearly you think is a “maybe”? Don’t you think its better to spend this money where we know its needed?

but there is this theory that CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths of radiation that may cause the surface of the earth to warm. This same theory suggests that the amount of moisture in the atmosphere will increase, exacerbating the warming

Oh dear John, how sad. It’s not a theory, it’s but pseudo-scientific babble.
Heat moves in one direction and one direction only: from hot to cold. (These are relative terms where cold means less hot than hot which means more hot than cold. Got that? Good.) Heat dissipated from the land or the surface, cannot warm the surface a second time.

The sun heats the surface. The surface transfers that heat to gases of the atmosphere in direct contact with it. These gases then rise (hot air rises because it is less dense than cooler air). This process is convection, there is very little radiation or absorption through the IR “windows” possessed by CO2—about 0.04%. The convective cooling is carried out nitrogen and oxygen which, between them, make up 99% of the atmosphere. (Xenon makes up another 0.9%). As the hot air rises, it cools. Why? Because as it gains height it is spread across an increasing surface area of a growing sphere whose radius is increasing with the height.

The heat cannot go backwards from cold to hot. Go study the Laws of Thermodynamics.
The CO2 (what tiny amount there is) scatters a bit of IR light through the Rayleigh effect. This is not heat and it has no heating effect on air which is almost completely transparent to IR. It does not rewarm the surface, because heat cannot go backwards.

It was knowing that heat cannot go backwards, Hansen and Co postulated a tropospheric hot spot at the top of the troposphere to support the “down-welling” babble. However, the satellites can’t see a hot spot and thousands of meteorology balloons couldn’t find it either. Without that, the idea of backwards heating is a non-starter. So toss that pseudo-scientific babble out.

The moisture in the air will only increase above large bodies of water such as the oceans. That’s where it all comes from, not from the dog’s water bowl. It’s coastal in its effects. It’s also only a partial truth. In the tropics, it can’t increase any more as it is already close to the maximum the air can support. This is why the tropics are so steamy, as there is enough H2O vapour in the air to reach about 4% concentration. This raises temperatures to about 38-39 degrees C. But that’s as far as it can go. When relative Ahumidity reaches 1, the water vapour condenses out. This is condition normal, and it’s been this way for 12.000 years or so.
The temperature of humid air is set by the water vapour’s latent heat and its height.

Queensland is partly tropical and mostly sub-tropical. That’s why it rains a lot there, always has, always does and always will. It’s entirely unaffected by the CO2. It’s the location, location, location property. It’s located next door to the Coral Sea Tropical Cyclone Factory and it’s partly in the monsoon belt. What an enormous potential for lots of rain.

So the weather changes around from year to year or from decade to decade? What of it if things don’t run quite to the same script in 2013 that they did in 1947? Give me one, just one bit of evidence that connects CO2 to any of it. That one little thing blows you and every other alarmist right out of the water every time. Never mind any other argument, give me the detail that counts.

If it is a given that there are many variables in play in a local climate then it seems to be naive to imagine that those variables will always act with the same intensities and characteristics on say a given date or month of every year.

It seems, at least intuitively true, that because of the complex and chaotic nature of climate it is more likely that every weather event on a given day or in a given month over any period of time will never be exactly the same. That understanding makes nonsense of attaching climate change significance to a “record” temperature in a certain location. That also should apply to variation in say rainfall.

Point 1) How long is a “long term” trend? Well the WMO definition of climate is a 30 years average. No less.

Point 5) One hot day isn’t a heatwave, but what is a heatwave? The WMO’s definition of a heatwave is 5 days in a row each with maximum temperatures more than 5 degrees above the long term average for that location at that time of year.
So 3 days in a row with Tmax 6 degrees above normal is not a heatwave. Five February days in a row with Tmax being more than 35 Celsius might be a heatwave for Melbourne but would not count as a heatwave for the Sahara desert.
In particular note that a heatwave is not defined for a region, it is only defined at the point where a thermometer is sited. You cannot just take a whole region, pick the highest maximums seen anywhere in that region on each of 5 days, and manufacture a heatwave out of nothing. (But this does not stop activist group GetUp! from contriving scary statistics about the whole country that do not match the scientific definition of a heatwave.)

Or to paraphrase “The Princess Bride“…You keep using that word heatwave. I do not think it means what you think it means!

The WMO set 30 years as a “normal” period for reporting purposes in 1935 (I think) and being before computers the times ended in a ‘zero’ year and were updated only after ten years. So, for example, about 1951 or ’52 the “normals” would have been shown as from 1921 through 1950. Then sometime in ’61 or ’62 new “normals” would have appeared for 1931 – 1960. The idea was to give folks something to compare their current day or week or month to. It was not intended that “normals” metamorphose into “climate.” Climate was already well defined as patterns primarily based on vegetation boundaries (historical (labor intensive), and now automated sensors). Vegetation integrates climate. For a start, see:http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/koppen.htm

Okay, interesting history lesson there.
Vegetation integrates climate because vegetation is a consequence of climate. The climate defines the possible vegetation, not the other way round. Using vegetation as an indicator of climate is the kind of shortcut one would use if you didn’t have objective weather stations scattered all over the world for the previous 30 years – the data-poor position Koppen was in during 1884. Weather stations integrate climate too, but they are not affected by non-climatic factors like soil nutrients and predation/disease as vegetation is. (Until post-facto upwards temperature revision by climate scientists, so maybe plants do have an advantage there because they don’t lie.)

So I figure if Koppen (or modern climatologists) used vegetation, that doesn’t mean climate was defined by vegetation, just that plant species were a convenient proxy for temperature and rainfall where no other objective measure is available. I don’t need to know the plants in my area to know it is warm and rainy!

I like that. Weather station instruments on the other hand might. Some folks reading might have missed the series – it is starting to age some — about how not to measure temperature. There are dozens of examples, here’s one:

One supposes this type of defining things–a heat wave is 5 days of above average temperatures–is to be expected in a “scientific” world were redefining illness, effectiveness, etc is the norm. Can’t get enough people on medications–invent diseases and for those with symptoms but no lab test, just add a few symptoms or decrease the length of time allowed for the symptoms to disappear (for example, grieving over the loss of a spouse cannot exceed 2 weeks or it becomes a medical illness and requires medication). It’s very easy to rule the world when you’re the one who defines everything. Define heat wave as 5 days and if that does not work, drop it to three days. Define blizzards as proof of climate change and hope no one remembers there have always been blizzards. Remake reality to be the word of experts and nothing else.

People always said that power corrupted. It does in any field, not just politics. Expect more and more definitions that make the data fit the theory and more and more new ways to define what climate change is in order for the power to be retained. Facts are irrelevant now.

Sheri
I believe the 5 days over 5.0C above average is acknowledged as the HW definition, though I have heard of 3 days over 40C.
If the former is true, there has been no heatwave in Bourke this year as there has not been 5 days over 41.8C.
If the latter is true, then they have had 2 heatwaves this January.

In Jan 1896, Bourke had 22 consecutive days of +40.0C – ie one heatwave only – but now two HWs in Jan 2013.
As you point out above, this is one way to say that the number of HWs are increasing and scare people.

How relevant is say a maximum temperature record for a specific location, as an indicator of anything more than randomness, when there may be an even higher maximum temperature record, at a different time, in a “nearby” location where other climate factors like moisture etc may be the same?

Sure, but if the number of new maximum temperature records consistently exceeds the number of new minimum temperature records, you’d say that it was getting warmer. But no one here argues that its not getting warmer. Some mention that it seems to have “stalled” recently, but most accept that after the “stall” it will just keep going up.

Gee John, “Sure, but if the number of new maximum temperature records consistently exceeds the number of new minimum temperature records, you’d say that it was getting warmer. “

If I were to take a walk (or for you ride my bike)every morning that included a hill or two that plateaued over long stretches, of course when i’m at the top of one of these hills i’d be higher than if had been lazy and chose a flat route.

It’s not whether or not it is getting warmer, it’s WHY and for HOW LONG. Stalling out followed by a year or two of warming, ten years of warming, all caused by nature is nothing new or worrisome. Stalling out, a year or two of warming caused partially by humans is not a problem if it stalls out again. Climate is NOT predictable, any more than weather. Unless you use a figure that is thousands of years long and even then the factors and patterns are not that clear.

The problem is WE CANNOT KNOW HOW CLIMATE WORKS. We are NOT that brilliant and clever. We can grasp small pieces and keep putting the puzzle pieces together. We might even get a few put together right. All the supercomputers in the world do NOT make us smarter–only dumber at light speed. This is the difference between climate change and climate science. Science recognizes what it cannot know. Climate change (AGW) does not.

In fairness the usage has changed over time with Cyclone taking over for one , and the larger of the land based “tornadoes” were still being refered to as Willy-Willy in the mid seventies , alas that`s another Australianism that`s being ousted by American film and TV .

*** “strangely” warm winters being experiences in “some regions” of the northern hemisphere?

reminds me of so much of the rain commentary on the MSM in the past couple of days. “now that the ‘good’ weather is back” one media hack said to a resident up north – meaning now that the much-anticipated, much-needed rain had stopped for the timebeing.

or the media hack who found someone up north to say within hours of the much-anticipted, much-needed rain – “i wish it would stop”.

or the BBC radio program on a non-CAGW topic last nite, where a guest on the program managed to end the discussion with an anecdote about how peoples moved inland from the coast to protect themselves from pirates hundreds of years ago, so they can do so again due to “terrifying” climate change today:

26 Jan: Sydney Morning Herald: AFP: Cities affecting weather in faraway places: study
Heat from large cities alters local streams of high-altitude winds, potentially affecting weather in locations thousands of kilometres away, researchers say.
The findings could explain a long-running puzzle in climate change – why some regions in the northern hemisphere are ***strangely experiencing warmer winters than computer models have forecast…
This phenomenon, known as the “urban heat island”, has been known for years, but until now has mainly been thought to affect only city dwellers, especially in summer heatwaves.
But a team of scientists in the United States, using a computer model of the atmosphere, point to impacts that go much further than expected.
The high concentration of heat rises into jet-stream winds and widens their flow, transporting heat – as much as 1C – to places far away…
The effect on global temperatures, though, is negligible, accounting for an average warming worldwide of just 0.01C…
The study appears in the journal Nature Climate Change.http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/cities-affecting-weather-in-faraway-places-study-20130128-2dfk9.html

After reading the article about cities affecting the weather in faraway places I noticed this link at the bottom of the page. It leads to this statement.

Like every other responsible uncle on the planet, I have been faced with a dilemma: how to expose my beloved nephews to the Star Wars films.

I’m trembling at the sheer magnitude of our failure to prioritize. I tell ya, we’re worrying about the wrong things. There are far more important problems to work on than CO2. What’s a trivial little matter like climate change when there’s the problem of which order do you watch the four Star Wars films to figure out? And just think — after that problem is solved it’s to do all over again in a few years with Lord of The Rings and again a little later with The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings. Oh Happy days! At last some real problems to solve.

Quick, call MattB, John Brookes, Ross James, Nice One and Maxine. I’m sure they’ll want to get right to work on it.

Ah now i see the connection, this is a real life parody of AGW theory, first you make 3 films to create the ending, then you make 3 films to depict the start that fit the ending and then you lose the two most important films which obtain all the relevant information so none of it to make sense.

In an effort to find the two missing films you hire dodgy men in white coats to find the films for you. They cant find the films so in an effort to bide some time they begin to make shit up just to keep everyone interested.

Weichao Wu of the Peking University and colleagues studied sea-surface temperature records preserved in deep-sea sediments near Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean, and found evidence for multiple cyclic temperature variations over the past 2700 years.

The most interesting temperature peaks correspond to medieval, Roman and possibly Minoan warming periods of about 900, 1800 and 2500 years ago.

The paper is significant in that it concludes that the current rate of global temperature change lies in the same range as that of those historical warming periods.

This suggests we have evidence that challenges current climate orthodoxy on two grounds, first by suggesting that such warming events were global not local European phenomena, and second that current warming is not unprecedented in the historical record.

Very important these long term cycles. If you can just slot the current warming into some sort of long term cycle, then we don’t have to worry about what caused it, because its just a natural cycle…

But John “there hasn’t been any warming since 1998. In fact the IPCC suppliers of data even show a slight cooling.”

Klaus–Ekart Puls, physicist and meteorologist points out that climate change is normal as the planet goes through phases of climate warming “many that even far exceeded the extent we see today. But there hasn’t been any warming since 1998. In fact the IPCC suppliers of data even show a slight cooling.”

He explains that the IPCC climate change computer models are based on “speculative model projections, so-called scenarios – and not prognoses. Because of climate’s high complexity, reliable prognoses just aren’t possible.”

Alarmist scientists have come forth to disagree with the findings of this study. And those professors who work for climate change departments at prestigious universities have a personal investment in the continuation of climate change research. Should the public consensus shift to only accept scientific data and not the alarmist perspective, those professors would be out of a job.

I think it is Maxine that has been going about the change in jetstream patterns. The only problem for Maxine is that this analysis suggests these changes in pattern are nothing unsual in climate history.

Periods of low sunspot activity are associated with changes in the winds that tear though the upper atmosphere, bringing unusually cold winters to northern Europe, a new study finds.

The study, published today in Environmental Research Letters1, analysed 350 years of temperature data recorded in central England since 1659, comparing it to astronomical observations of sunspots. The research team, led by Mike Lockwood, a solar-terrestrial physicist at the University of Reading, UK, found that after allowing for global climate change, European winters tended to be 0.5 °C colder than average during low-solar-activity years.

Sorry, Ian, but the “it”, which you claim “exists”, is still not a TEMPERATURE (of any THING).

Mathematically-speaking, you ASSUME that we have a method of measuring the statistical behaviour of EVERY molecule in a room, the average of which (mathematically) has a calculable value.

But that VALUE (even if you can calculate it, which is doubtful) is not the “temperature” of any THING. There is no “average molecule”, moving at the hypothesised “average velocity”, over an “average mean free path”.

All of those “average” concepts are just that; statistical constructs (like the “average family” with 1.645 children).

If “it” does not exist physically, you cannot (by definition) measure “it”.

Any “measurement” ever made ONLY ever exists in the head of the measurer. Unless you write with a very large pen and a long piece of paper, “2 metres” is NOT two metres long; it is a symbolic represenrtation of the concept. Like “Beauty”, it is “in the eye of the beholder”.

It is also ‘relative’, in this case, to a legally prescibed standard metre, based on the wave-length of a particular “light frequency”.

Not to run foul of the anti-discrimination laws, I omitted any reference to the “parents” in the “average family”; I believe that varies from place to place and, at a rough guess, is about “1.007 females and 0.993 males” today.

The concept of a global average temperature was discredited in these 2 papers; the first by Essex, McKitrick and Andresen looks athe statistical error of averaging temperature over the globe; they make the comparison with a telephone book where the avraging of each number would ne menaingless.

The 2nd paper is by Pielke and others. Pielke looks at the physical absurdity of a GAT; based on the fact that AGW is really a measure of excess radiation in the physical system, atmosphere and ocean, of the Earth, the GAT is simply inaccurate in measuring that level of excess radiation, or indeed whether it exists at all. This is based on Steffan Boltzmanns law which says radiation emitted from a body or surface is directly proportional to the temperature to the 4th power of that surface.

What this means is the average of a large set of temperatures, such as the GAT components, taken to the 4th power will be different from the average of the 4th power of each of a set of data; the difference may be expressed as:

(A + B)^4 > A^4 + B^4

So if A=3 and B=2, (A+B)^4= 3125 and A^4+B^4=259.

Furthermore if A is at the poles and the temperature base is much less than B which is at the equator the disparity will be much greater; and if B has a decrease then the GAT may still be positive while the actual energy balance of the Earth is negative.

So, the GAT is effectively useless; but try telling that the BOM or the ABC which these days is interchangeable.

Useful for what? What in reality correlates to “average”? Median and mode are somewhat more useful, but use of the actual data without statistical manipulation would be nice. We have to computing strength to graph temperatures year by year at each station, one at a time and look for changes. Changes worldwide are nonsensical. Again, if the poles melt and the equator freezes, you get the same average as now. It’s ridiculous. It might be a good starting point to take 100 years of individual points, compare them year by year and then look at changes overall. Sadly, us being human and all, we tend to freak out if something changes. Any measurement in today’s catastrophe-minded, nothing-should-ever-vary society is probably a bad idea. Best idea: Stop measuring altogether until the chicken little phenomena dies down some.

Using a large number data points does smooth the average, but we really aren’t looking at the average anyway. We are looking at the anomalies. So we added all the data together, divided by the number of data points and then only looked at anomalies. And?

in point #7, one must also take into account that HadCrud adjusted their temps from 1980 onwards, so the slope is probably even less than the .16 shown

They have also adjusted the temps from 1940 – 1970 downwards meaning the peak in 1939 was probably a lot higher, about where we are at now (as illustrated by the fact that we are only now matching the maximum temps of that period.)

It would be interesting to see the same graph done using the unadjusted raw temperature readings.. I suspect that the climb from 1900-1940 would be significantly steeper. Followed by a basically symmetrical “V” shape with shallower slopes.

‘The science is settled’ is the platitude which lefties prefer to quieten the masses. Yet when I google: “climate previously thought’ I get 172,000,000 hits which suggest that the science is still being questioned, and it seems (from my small sampling) that the significant majority of these ‘deniers’ are believers?. Why are they not taken to task by their peers?

I would not worry about the alarmists. They are a dying breed. You will find that most are in the 14 to 25 year bracket and need a belief system, very like communism/socialism in the 60s to 80′s. The young ones and the heavy weights as they get older are abandoning AGW in droves. Latest AGW loss is Lovelock ex green peace and so on. I don’t think AGW will even be a subject of conversation in 5 years. This means of course that ALL climate sites will die out including this one

The subject of Global warming is fast becoming discredited and boring. The greenie activist groups need to refill their coffers. If they cannot do it with unfounded scare stories about global warming, or whatever is fashionable to call this non-problem today, then a new scary something will be needed.

Fracking makes sense, so it is an ideal target for the Ecoloons and they have the added bonus of it involving carbon dioxide emissions.

This means of course that ALL climate sites will die out including this one

Well, I don’t want to put words in Joanne’s mouth, but this site is unlikely to die out, just because one particular scam collapses.

If you go back through the archive you will find other topics that are just as interesting (if not more so) than climate.

And we need to remember that the politicians have discovered that, “Science tells us that …” is a powerful argument that can be used to impose new and unwarranted taxes on people who don’t know enough about science to realise what is happening.

Sites like this educate those people, and empowers them to question the politicians. That can never be a bad thing to do — they are supposed to work for you, after all.

Lots of other communist-socialist agenda and propaganda to pull apart and expose, like UN Agenda 21 that Lord Monckton is apparently including in his presentations. GW/CC is after all a new world order agenda item crafted to deceive and control us.

I will add a 9th reason – the heatwave, such as it was, was a classic blocking pattern, with a big high in the Tasman Sea.

From the link:

When a summer-time high moves over the Tasman Sea, high temperatures and mostly fine conditions are the usual outcome, though there may be some light precipitation in the north and northeast.

Blocking highs are strong high-pressure systems that remain near stationary for an extended period of time.

They block the west-to-east progression of weather systems across southern Australia, and often form over the Tasman Sea.

I happened to see the synoptic chart of 17 January, with a quite intense high pressure system in the Tasman. Exactly as you would expect for a blocking pattern. Unfortunately I cannot find a chart from that date, although BoM mentions it in their write up.

As I’ve mentioned before such blocking patterns are are also linked to lower solar activity, as is occurring now.

Bruce, I noticed this on the BoM synoptic chart each day of the warm temperatures … high in the south blocking the W/E low across the centre of the country and streaming hot dry winds to the SE of Australia.

The most disturbing thing about all this is that people have to be told summer is not caused by our CO2. Even worse bad weather has always been with us get over it. I remember the 5 days of high temperatures in Sydney in 1959 people went off work in droves but 108 F for the Tuesday (27/01/1959) sounds much hotter!

The other thing I find even more disturbing is that there is a belief we can control the weather.

Actually Fred is an expert on catastrophy. After presiding over the virtual destruction of a once robust publisher Fairfax, Fred wrote the definitive text on “What the . . . ” analysis titled without any hint of irony “The Fairfax Experience—What The Management Texts Didn’t Teach Me“. Hilmer is currently presiding over the destruction of academic standards of a once credible University of New South Wales. But after reading V-C Fred’s missive from the baoardroom, what UNSW academic is going to speak or publish against the CAGW swill? What UNSW academic on one of Fred’s fixed term contracts is going to produce a paper against the dominant paradigm. Hilmer is one of the knuckle men in our universities enforcing the warmist paradigm. His ärgument from the fallacy of authority in defence of the dominant warmist paradigm is a tautology and particulalry dangerous.
Hilmer’s absolute confidence in the consensus brings to mind the example of Lord Kelvin (William Thompson). The first scientist knighted by Queen Victoria for services to science and empire (Thompson an Ulsterman was vehemently opposed to Hone Rule) Lord Kelvin occupied a position in Britain and the empire similar to that of Hanson. You may not have heard of Lord Kelvin because as a defender of two dominant paradigms he suffered two terrible scientific defeats. Firstly. he was a proponent of the Vortex Theory in physics which was destroyed by the Michelson-Morley experiment in the late nineteenth century. Not learning from this, Lord Kelvin a fierce proponent of Newtonian mechanical physics wrote the following: There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement. Five years later Einstein wrote his paper on special relativity. And as they say the rest is history. Including Lord Kelvin. Although his name lives on as a unit of measure of temperature – the kelvin. I suggest that there will emerge a unit of measurement for catastrophy in management – the hilmer.

Ease up there, Connolly. A little more Einsteinian scepticism might be warranted. Science did not stop with Michelson-Morley or Einstein.

Morley went on to do much better work with Miller, the latter never conceding that Einstein was correct, any more than Einstein ever claimed to have said the “last word” on what constitutes “empty” space.

Einstein only ever claimed that his MATHEMATICAL theory was self-consistent, and did not needan aether. He even admitted that PHYSICS demanded one, with electrical and magnetic properties, the ratio of which determined the velocity of light in ‘space’.

Indeed the advance of understanding in physics didn’t stop with the work of Michelson, Morley or Sinstein. My point was that scientific paradigms are often decisively falsified at the height of consensus.

Einstein may not be correct, but he is not wrong in the way that the vast majority of his critics think he was. Most of his critics just could not accept that the speed of light was the same for everyone, and so came up with many ingenious ways of “proving” Einstein wrong. A lot like todays climate “skeptics” really.

Except no one has yet to prove Einstein wrong, there was no consensus and aside from that atomic bomb thing, theoretical physics has very little influence on politic. Climate science has thousands of critics, predictions fail at the same rate psychics’ predictions do and it has HUGE political implications. Other than that, it’s a fine analogy.

Well, that “atomic bomb thing” has been a significant elephant in the room of international relations for the last sixty five years.

But, I agree with your point about the failure rate in both physics and climate “science”.

The big difference there, though, is that Physics is carving an elephant (“You take a large piece of stone, and cut away all the pieces that don’t look like an elephant.”); whereas climate “science” has found a large rock, and is insisting that if you stand on one leg, at dusk, with the light off to one side, and squint hard enough, you can just make out the shape of a large animal that might possibly be an elephant.

I propose a unit of measure for quantifying non-existence, called the Mann. There is a practical application. Following the trend to name physical units after scientists, like “Hertz” for example, astronomers could adopt the “Mann” : a unit of magnitude for the quantum of size and flux of a black hole at the center of a galaxy. A black hole could be described as having magnitude of so many Manns (or just “Mann”) The origin of the derivation of the name would amuse school children for decades, and assure his rightful place in history. The rationale for the name choice shouldn’t require elucidation….

As far as I can tell, John, your definition of internal consistency is whatever is convenient to you at the moment. Well, okay, you do have the faith of any religious follower to believe your god is right. But science is not a god. The only consistency in science is questioning, experimenting, modifying if necessary and testing again. The consistency is in the METHODS. Not all experiments prove what they started out to–though admittedly people don’t like that and demand the “right” answers where there are none. Science is LEARNING, not PREACHING. Learning means being right some times and wrong some times. Again, climate “belief” CANNOT learn because it cannot be wrong and knows everything there is to know. It has “consensus”, a term that does not apply to science. Two different things here and applying your standards of religion to this science sight is causing you to look for something that CANNOT exist on a science site.

When you discuss SCIENCE, as WUWT does, yes there are going to be inconsistencies, and arguements.

On the other hand you have the CAGW propaganda site, SkS, run by a cartoonist, which doesn’t allow discussion of anything.
Hence the same load-of-rubbish, nonsense story thoughout.
And because they basically have zero idea what they are talking about, a large amount of internal inconsistency and misinformation.

I agree with your point of view somewhat but this is politics. Can the public handle the truth? The truth is they have been mislead by people that either do not the truth or are frauds. Kill the RET, CO2 tax and associated network work sounds fine to me but will it help win government?

Obviously, eliminating the carbon tax doesn’t interest you.
Stopping the boat arrivals doesn’t interest you.
Maintaining free speech for all Australians doesn’t interest you.
In fact, nothing Julia Gillard says or does interests you, so by all means, throw your vote in the rubbish bin.
Just don’t complain about the government after the election, because obviously you don’t care enough to have your opinion counted on election day.
If you’re not interested on election day, what makes you think others are interested in your political opinions after the election?

Our borders are open and it is a disgrace. GreenLaboUr is a disgrace.
Granted, a vote for the LNP might help Australia regain control.
It won’t happen overnight and it won’t be pretty as it is an industry now. Tax-payer funded lawyers are swarming.
Many more will drown before anything happens.

Free speech.
I may not agree with what you say, but, I will defend your right to say it, but, where is the LNP on this?
There is nothing mentioned in the LNP Real Solutions for ALL Australians brochure about “restoring” free speech.
Nothing. Nowhere.
A little lip service in passing is not enough.

I would ask you, MaxL, do you think Tony Abbott will stop/delete the totalitarian government (tax-payer) attacks & smearing of individuals who happen to disagree with Abbott’s climateUN-IPCC/CSIRO science in the name of free speech?
Can you imagine Turnbull & Hunt leading that charge on behalf of Plimer and his right to free speech?

If Abbott changes his climate science policies after if/when elected, is he any lesser a liar than Gillard & the “no carbon (sic) tax” pledge?

And so, we arrive back to the reason I am prepared to waste my most precious vote.

The war on reality (climate change) is the foot in the door for even more of what you have highlighted above.

The Shadow Attorney General, George Brandis SC has already gone on record saying that as a result of the Andrew Bolt case it will be his first priority to return the right of free speech, if the LNP win the election.

Most of the links you provided are Australian Government sites. Labor Government sites, nothing whatsoever to do with the LNP or Abbott. You are painting the Liberal/National Party with the same brush as you are using on Gillard and Labor. You are suggesting that Abbott is deceitful because Gillard tells lies.

I’m not going to try to convince you to vote for the LNP. Clearly, if you threw your last vote in the bin then I’m not interested in your current political opinions. People like my father, fought and died to give you that right to vote, and your response is; I’m just gunna throw that right back in their faces! Because you can’t distinguish between chalk and cheese.

Look at it this way, if Gillard heard that you, as an AGW sceptic, wasted your vote, do you think she would be unhappy? No, she would be ecstatic, because you have effectively given her Labor candidate a better chance of winning. So if you want to make Gillard happy then throw your vote away, or better still, vote for the ALP.

You said, “Granted, a vote for the LNP might help Australia regain control”. Isn’t that better than leaving it in the hands of someone who, with a proven track record, is definitely doing her best to f..k Australia?

You say, “… my most precious vote”. Can’t be very precious if you just throw it away.

Quote: “You are painting the Liberal/National Party with the same brush as you are using on Gillard and Labor.”

I just provided the links, though what you state is obvious. Why blame me? Because you don’t like what you see?

Plimer contradicts the PARTISAN support of this UN-IPCC climate science.

Abbott owns those web pages against Plimer as much as Gillard or he is a hypocrite.
Either “the science is crap” or Abbott is no better than Gillard.
The very nature of the climate fraud makes anyone who agrees with it, or “believes” a hypocrite.
.

Quote: “Look at it this way, if Gillard heard that you, as an AGW sceptic, wasted your vote, do you think she would be unhappy? No, she would be ecstatic, because you have effectively given her Labor candidate a better chance of winning. So if you want to make Gillard happy then throw your vote away, or better still, vote for the ALP.”

And if I vote for either, it would be a vote for the UN Agenda 21, as both parties support the junk science of the UN-IPCC and the implementation of all the UN stands for.
.

Handjive, if you think that by voting informal you will stop Agenda 21 or one world government or the carbon tax or boat people etc, etc, then go for it!
Quite frankly the only person who will know that you have thrown away your vote and the reasons why and what you think doing so will achieve, is yourself. Only in your mind will you be convinced that you have made a statement.

There are 2 kinds of people who vote informal:
1) Those who are incapable of correctly filling out a ballot sheet. They may not be able to read or they may be too drunk, stoned or high on drugs. Or they may suffer from dementia and have forgotten why they were given this piece of paper.
2) Those who don’t care who represents them in Parliament. They may be politically naive or they just don’t understand how democracy works.

You oppose the carbon tax, so too does Karen Andrews (your Liberal Member for McPherson).
Ask Dan Byron (the Labor candidate) what is his opinion of the carbon tax.

Chalk and cheese.

If you can’t differentiate between the two then do the right thing and throw your vote in the bin. On election day, speak now or forever hold your peace.

Well, that just takes the cake. Having just received both SMS alert, phone alert and a visit from council staff telling me I might want to think about evacuating, I did what was recomended. I went to the Council Website, typed in my address and receive the following response:-

You have requested data for a property NOT known to be flood affected by the 1974 or 2011 floods.

How about instead of jacking up my rates to pay for this type of kneejerk BS, you spend it on addressing the lack of reasonable water pressure in this non flood prone area, Or are 6 years of requests by the residents not enough to get you out of your office.

Which is WHY, John Brookes, you can fry at 50C in a desert during the day and freeze at -10C at night. This doesn’t happen in the tropics at all. The CO2 levels being the same, the entire effect is due to WATER VAPOUR.

In case you’ve also forgotten, remember how cloudy nights are always warmer than clear ones? As CO2 is 1.5x the weight of air, it’s down near the ground. The water vapour is making the clouds. It doesn’t take an entire IPCC’s worth of overpaid -Snip- (scientists) to have clearly observed and validated this effect many times over your lifetime.

In order to single out certain atmospheric gases and demonise them as the culprits responsible for atmospheric warming, it was necessary to attribute certain characteristics to the so called “Greenhouse Gases” with regard to radiant heat which would set them apart from the two most abundant atmospheric gases, Oxygen and Nitrogen.

In his memoirs entitled “Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat”, detailing a series of experiments conducted at the Royal Institution, Tyndall fallaciously states with regard to Oxygen and Nitrogen that they are both quote:

“practically transparent to radiant heat.”

Thus laying the foundations of AGW fraud.

This statement by John Tyndall is the origin of such claims as “the science is settled” and the “greenhouse effect is 150 year old established physics.” In terms of radiant heat it is the only factor that would differentiate between the various atmospheric gases.

After all, Oxygen and Nitrogen constitute 99% of the atmosphere. If these two gases are shown to absorb and re-emit infrared radiation, what would make so called “Greenhouse Gases” like CO2, such a threat to the environment at only 0.0385% of the atmosphere?

So the basis for the “Greenhouse Effect” is that incoming and out going IR is not absorbed by Oxygen and Nitrogen which instead passes straight through these gases. According to this unsubstantiated hypothesis, only those gases which are termed “Greenhouse Gases” posses the capability to absorb and re-emit infrared radiation.

The problem for the hypothesis of the “Greenhouse Effect” and of course AGW itself is that the basic premise on which the hypothesis is based is false.

Firstly, Oxygen and Nitrogen both have higher specific heat capacities than CO2.

As can be seen in figure 1 below, Nitrogen is clearly absorbing infrared radiation at between 3.8 and 5 micrometers.

It is a similar case for Oxygen which also has many absorption bands within the range of infrared radiation.

The evidence I have presented here conclusivly shows that Oxygen and Nitrogen which constitute 99% of the Earths atmosphere, as one would expect, do in-fact absorb infrared radiation.

The claim that these two gases are transparent to IR is completely fallacious. Which goes along way to explain why the “Greenhouse Effect” hypothesis is one of the longest standing unsubstantiated hypothesis in the history of science.

The so called “Greenhouse Effect” will always remain an hypothesis for the simple reason that it is based on pseudo science.

I’m confused. There is a graph on the page you reference showing the absorption spectrum of N2. However the values on the vertical axis are about 10,000,000,000 times smaller than the same graph for CO2. Isn’t that saying that N2 hardly absorbs any infra red?

But to be fair, I’m not familiar with such graphs and what they are supposed to be showing. But a basic weapons-grade mistake like not owning up to N2 being a significant IR absorber is too dumb, even for those conspiring AGW gravy train chasing scientists.

Global Warming!!!……..(oops no global warming, have to try something else)
Climate Change!!!……..(this is not working, too bland, ok what else can we think of)
Global Climate Disruption!!!……..(well that worked for a while, but all those chicken little jokes are really annoying)
Dirty Weather!!!……..(Al Gore means well, but since that Al Jazeera thing, hmmm have to distance ourselves)

ah got it now:

Extreme Weather!!!

That’ll work. What, weather is just ordinary? Well call it extreme guys! Its extreme! Really really extreme! Like so hot it is hotter than almost ever (except last week when it was hotter). Well, if its not hot enough add the heat index to it, it really feels hot doesn’t it.

Nope, Checked all the figures and they are as correct using the BOM online data. Jan 26-31 of 2009 in Sydney averages 37.5. To overcome the definition of a heatwave in Hobart (with low annual weather year) from one in Alice (with a high annual weather year), I decided to avoid average annual or monthly temperatures and simply choose the highest consecutive 5 day average each year in the 150 or so years of data. I reason that the average person living in a place would reasonably regard the highest 5=day average thus calculated as a ‘heat wave’ just as validly as any other method would produce.
Couple of notes. I used Tmax from the start of a 5 day consecutive period to the end, which is commonly from 9 am on the beginning of day 1 to the end of day 5, which is also the start of day 6. While I call it a 5-day closed end average, it is arguable that it is a 6 day open ended average.
In a couple of cases, the average would be higher if I used a Jan-Feb overlap period. There are very few of these and I think the longest involves 5 readings from Jan and one from Feb. There are also (rare) cases where Dec 31 could go into the Jan figures. It’s simply ill-defined, so I did what was conservative.
Finally, the Tmax at central Melbourne and Sydney is not meant as a guide to correlate with past bush fires. It does not do so at all well. These stations were chosen for length of records and quality control.

These notes from an email to a friend might help:
You will see that there is some regularity of repetition of heat waves so defined, in the sense that they tend to be evenly spread after about 1870. About one every 8-9 years. They do not seem to be getting hotter over the decades, cooler if anything. Remember Urban Heat Island is in these numbers but it does not show, so the cooling is likely to be more pronounced than the eyeball shows. Note that Melbourne heatwaves are much hotter then Sydney, because of the dominance of NNW winds in summer from the hot centre.

Going further, we have just has large fires where there were large fires before, in 2009 and (from memory) 2003, to the south of the alpine ski areas. This means that one has to question the value of controlled burns. If they work, they have to be repeated every 5 years or so. A few years ago, about 2005, I calculated that the controlled burn program of the Vic Govt would take 192 years to cover the State, it was so miniscule.

What is worse, the fires seldom start on the first day of a heat wave unless they are lit. The bad ones seem to need several preconditions. 1. A few good preceding years of vegetation growth to build up fuel. 2. An ignition, with perhaps 50% suspected as arson or faulty power lines, the rest mainly lightning. So the weather has to be predisposed to lightning in a bad year. 3. A high wind velocity of hot, dry air, sometimes coincident with high temperatures, but not always by any means. 4. Variable wind direction, so that a fire front can become a fire side of much greater length through a 90 deg change of wind direction. 5. No heavy rain. 6. An amenable tree shape, with leaves shaped by natural growth or previous fires to allow top burning to be strong. 7. A few other factors like the type of trees and oils therein, fire breaks both natural and man-made, access to water drop aircraft, etc.

Although there might be some link between bad bushfires and a coincident heat wave, many fires do not need the heat wave. A heat wave does not start fires, but it has a correlation because the high temperatures are usually associated with strong winds from a dry inland for a few days and it is the winds that are damaging. It is therefore of little use to spend a lot of money to try to predict heat waves. Ditto for outdoor barbecues.

Those fond of records, people like John above, may like to reflect on Sydney’s hottest January. It occurred in 1896.This is from the BOM’s own records, which still stand. I remember our long Big Heat, back in 1960, but I think I’d take any January over that of 1896. And people were nonetheless coming to Sydney to escape the inland heat! Oh well, at least the city had more water than in 1888, its driest year on record.

Some talk of Hobart? It had its hottest January as recently as 2003. But it’s hottest month on record was a February – in 1895!

All of this proves nothing, of course…except that you can prove anything by putting a few factoids in and leaving a few others out.

Stay dry all! That radar is indicating a lot of rain on the Macleay catchment. We’re a serious river, unlike that piddly Bellinger. It takes a lot to make us flood, but when we do…

The problem with the 1896 Jan record is that the 19th Jan has missing data so that would preclude it as a record. However, at 29.5C it is still far and above any other year. 1991 was 29.1C but it too has missing data for the 16th.

Regardless of that these years would still have beaten this year’s average which will be about 27.7C and any other year someone would like to put up.

About people coming to Sydney – Bourke was being evacuated by train. It had 22 consecutive days of +40C. Now that’s a heatwave.

Ian, that heatwave of 1895-1896 is our second most lethal natural disaster, and only just shaded by the heat of 1938-1939. Of course, with modern tech and air-con that mortality should not be repeated. But have you noticed the cost of electricity and refrigerant gases lately, especially those gases?

In an era when toilets no longer flush properly, we should not be surprised. There are actually people who believe in evaporating sea water using power from decaying coal facilities (because alternative energies aren’t alternatives) in order to run water through a cistern without achieving a flush. Is this about protecting a threatened species called vibrio cholerae? What does it say at the top of Jo’s blog? Something about a good civilisation going to waste?

John, you talking about Stevenson screens? So our two most lethal natural disasters, both heatwaves and widely documented, should be discounted because of the lack of Stevenson screens (in some places)?

Are you even curious about the record high monthly temps from long ago which still stand in BOM’s own records. The record dries from the 1800s which are still valid in BOM’s own records? Do you wonder about 1939 in Sydney, about why that January day was so hot and why the surrounding region was much hotter than the other day? Do you wonder? Or does Sydney record temp only matter now because a thermometer has at last gone a bit higher than on January 14, 1939 (for a minute or so, it seems.) Or were you a climate skeptic till two weeks ago, always going with the Sydney and Hobart numbers?

John, you’ll be relieved to know that we have not had a natural disaster which has killed so many people as the two heatwaves mentioned above. Yes, a million sheep were burnt in 1851 in Victoria, in what was likely the biggest fire in world history. However, it was world surge champion, Cyclone Mahina, which killed the next biggest number of humans in Oz. But that was in 1899, so it may be of little interest to the New Man at Year Zero.

Mind you, the fires of 2009 were horrific, and Yasi, unlike Sandy, was a hell of a powerful cyclone. So, John, I guess there are two climate messages here. Firstly, Gaia is not our mummy. Secondly, Gaia never was our mummy.

The deaths back then were far higher, because of the lack of forecasting ability and communications technology. It could also have been because conditions were worse, but since the methods of measuring temperatures have changed, it is a bit hard to tell if they were really worse.

That’s right, John. You don’t know exactly. I don’t know exactly. We don’t know exactly. But Climate Hipsterism demands that we spin the past away, no matter how compelling the evidence. The McTernan/GetUp approach: if reality won’t fit the script, just tear up the reality. Spin. Fudge. Adjust. Ring the Macquarie Dictionary for new definitions if necessary.

Think about that 1955 Maitland Flood, John, while we are experiencing this present flood. In 1955, to the north and west of Sydney, an inland sea was formed…the size of England and Wales! What if the serial storms and cyclones of the 1970s were to repeat themselves now, especially those of 1974? Ask yourself what the climatariat would make of all that if it occurred right now or soon (which it could). Yasi was a real brute, but what if a Cyclone Mahina – 914 mbar! – were to rake through a populated part of modern Qld, instead of the Qld of 1899? What if Brisbane were to cop not one but three major floods in a month, as it did in 1893? What would the climatariat have to say?

Stephenson screens were in use in all capital cities (with the possible exception of Perth) in 1899. Melbourne had at least one before 1870. Their use was so widespread in most of Australia by 1890 that there installation wasn’t considered newsworthy.

The date for Perth is uncertain, but it seems to have been installed in 1898 (other dates given are 1891, 1894, 1899). There was a rush of installations in WA once the money from the gold rush started reaching the Treasury.

So it looks like carbon dioxide hasn’t contributed that much to warming.

It was also before Stephenson screens came into common use, so most likely it actually wasn’t as hot as they thought it was.

Ok John Brookes. That takes the cake as the most stupid thing I have seen from you to date. What is a Stevenson screen? Its a little hot box sitting out in the sun, no less. Back in the days we are talking about, they were far more careful how they measured temperature and it was always measured *in the shade*, not some hot little box sitting out in the sun. Were they to have used a Stevenson screen, their recorded temperatures would have been through the roof.

Tell me. When did you last hear of birds and bats dropping dead out of the sky? When?

Common Sense Mattb – have you ever looked at a Stevenson screen?. Have you ever been out in really hot weather? What do you think happens to this box? Do you really think it does not get hotter inside? Sure, a thermometer in direct sunlight will get hotter as it absorbs heat…. which only goes to prove that a Stevenson box also absorbs heat. Some of this heat will be radiated inside the box. That’s just common sense.

Do an experiment Mattb. Get two Stevenson screens. Sit one out in the hot sun on a nice hot day, then sit the other somewhere nearby in a well shaded and ventilated area away from radiated heat. Please note the difference in temperature readings. You will be getting close to how temperatures were taken “back in the olden days”…. in the shade.

Irrelevant John. Like it really matters we have barely 200 years of climatic/weather data? I’ll bet over the last measly 100 million years of Earth’s history there was no such thing as a Stevenson Screen for you to argue about and that all our current records for heat/cold/flood/drought/snow are just as measly.

As we’re now still climbing out of the Little Ice Age, why not ponder over the paintings of the frozen Thames ice fairs and blissfully wish you were born back then, or the 1300′s, when “witches” were burned at the stake for ruining crops. Could it be that you’re just completely wrong?

Well we need to stop CC so what do we need to do lets go to the formost authority on the subject.

Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?

James Hansen,

And what does he say?.

“Stabilizing atmospheric CO2 and climate requires that net CO2 emissions approach zero (10),
because of the long lifetime of CO2.”

So there you have it folks to save the earth we have to emitt Nada,Zero,Zilch CO2
Shouldn’t be to hard instead of Earth day we could try Earth week where we emitt no CO2 that is no CO2.And at the end of the week we can reacess if we want to continue.Because the last time the CO2 level was stable was about 1880 and humans emitted less than 1Gt/Yr then.We now emitt 36Gt/Yr.
So we can forget emissions reductions and carbon taxes we have been told by the Messiah what has to be done and all the carbon taxes in the world and all the emissions reductions in the world will not achieve that.

The UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) stated in a recent press statement that they expect the la Nina to come early this year, which is proof that there are unprecedented changes in the weather. WMO claims that the Artic melting of sea ice and recent weather extremes correlate.

According to the statement: “January-October 2012 has been the ninth warmest such period since records began in 1850. The global land and ocean surface temperature for the period was about 0.45°C (0.81°F) above the corresponding 1961–1990 average of 14.2°C.”

Predicting more meteorological devastation, the WMO claim that Arctic sea melt “reached its lowest” point which is the data recorded by satellites. WMO will release a report entitled “2001-2010: Decade of Extremes” next month. This document was produced in part by the UN, eco-fascist scientists and international agencies supporting the myth of man-made climate change.

Weather patterns unusual to norms recorded in history and blamed on global warming are:

Michael Jarraud, president of the WMO stated: “The extent of Arctic sea ice reached a new record low. The alarming rate of its melt this year highlighted the far-reaching changes taking place on Earth’s oceans and biosphere. Climate change is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records.”

Anyway, what possible relevance has the question got to do with the subject? Are you claiming that one or two cold days disproves global warming? At least that is consistent with claiming that a few hot days is a proof of global warming.

No-one disputes that the “World Temperature” (whatever that is) has gone up in the last 150 years. In fact from what records we have, it has gone up in cycles since at least 1710 (after the Little Ice Age). There have been cooler periods, especially the Dalton minimum when the sun was quiet with few sun-spots, and warmer periods e.g. 1730′s, 1770′s, 1850-1880 (approx.), 1910-1940 (approx.) and 1979-1995 (approx.).

7 of the warmest summers in England since 1660 occurred in the 1730′s, but no-one would think that the decade was warmer than today, nor that it was caused by CO2. The high summer temperatures in 1899 followed years of drought in central Australia, and the bare earth heated up. Possibly there were blocking highs which prevented or at least weakened the monsoon, much as happened recently. It was just weather, not CLIMATE CHANGE.

The claim that the level of CO2 determines the temperature is ludicrous, and no-one with any knowledge of the past would think otherwise. There are too many times where higher temperatures than the last 35 years have occurred when the level of CO2 was lower than the current level, and cases also where the temperature was lower despite CO2 being much higher than today. Any effect that CO2 has on temperature has to be minor or non existent, and there is NO evidence that it causes climate change.

I noticed at ALPBC The Drum a professor has written to ask us why with all the recent weather we take notice of weather forecasts and research and therefore why we must take CC seriously too. Do you guys note the panic in the air from the alarmist camp?

You see, John, some places are warmer and some are colder. There has been no warming on a global basis for 16 years! The temps for this interglacial peaked during the holocene maximum during the Bronze age approximately 7,000 BP. The trend line has been down since. In fact, it is almost as warm today as it was during the MWP, which was global! So, John, how could it be warmer for most of the current interglacial than it is now? After all, CO2 levels were much lower until the nineteenth century and have gone up dramatically in the last two centuries. Why haven’t temperatures exceeded those of the earlier holocene interglacial?

Eddy ,
Apart from the modern warm period looking to be one of the milder warm cycles this interglacial it turns out the Eemian was much warmer than previously thought . The first complete ice core sample has been analysed and seems it was 3-4 degrees warmer than the holocene optimum and about 8 degrees warmer than now .

Sorry, John, nearly overlooked your question. Not sure why a brief period of hot or cold is important, but I agree it’s interesting.

While the real tragedy of this year’s cold wave has been the effect on India, there is something for Euro record buffs. It doesn’t really matter, especially since the record cold action this year is in North America, but three regions of Finland have achieved record lows this winter. Contrary to some claims, the historic cold of early 2012, as well as setting a record in Astrakhan, did manage a few record minima in the Norwegian coastal strip.

Like I’d care! Australia is wasting coal in ancient facilities while stringing those ridiculous whirlygigs across the countryside. That’s like driving a forty year old Falcon and putting a solar panel on its roof to save power. Can you believe this stuff?

Like I’d care if a thermometer once crept a bit lower or higher on some particular day. Nature is firing bullets and we’re packing cap guns.

JB
In all the time I have been following weather/climate, I have never heard or come across a category of ‘daily maximum temperature record’ (let alone a ‘daily minimum temperature’). And then, bang! a new record is announced out of the blue.
The initial record was supposedly set in Dec 1972 using the average of some 700+ weather stations across Australia.
They haven’t obviously used the ACORN records as there are only about 110 stations that have the data (and that, according to Kenskingdom, averages out at less than 36C).
If they had looked at Jan 1939 they probably would have found a higher temp but there would have been less stations.

According to Their ABC, there is no way the events of the last week could have been predicted. Apparently at Their ABC high pressure blocking systems have never, ever, happened before. Shouldn’t really be surprised, after all they do depend on BOM & CSIRO data which predicited a less than 50% chance of above median rainfall over the summer period. Maybe they should go back to reigonal areas instead of metro areas, fruit growers have been expecting a wet summer based on the quantity and quality of flowering & fruit set. Funny how bees and other pollinating insects are a better weather vanes than the BOM & CSIRO. My peach, nectarine and aproicot trees in my yard had the best fruit set in the last 5 years, nectarines the size of cricket balls, peaches the size of my fist and more apricots to dry than I’ll eat in a year. Over 30kg of fruits left at the community centre and the local child care centres. What ever am I going to do if Flannery’s permanent state of drought ever abates.

Errrr Fruit trees. We had it announced yesterday that the very useful pest control chemical Confidor has killed a large part of the bee population that normally hangs around pollinating crops. How come you missed out on the Curse of the Confidor? Or is it another attempt to revert to lemon juice, vinegar and soap as the cure-alls of our distant childhood, and a deliberate slur upon the skill of synthesis chemists?

PaulM, Some sort of mixup here. I was not having a dig at you. I was being a bit sarcastic about the media gardening set who are much more anti man-made chemical and more pro natural organic cures than even a decade ago. BTW, I’m interested in the mechanism of how companion plantings reduce the need to use pesticides. In our home gardens, the greater the variety of plants, including companion plantings, the greater the variety of pests that were attracted. That’s why I tend towards large scale monoculture with designer pest control chemicals or GM, for serious crop production as in feeding starving people. There are many papers forecasting starvation on a large scale if “organic farming” sensu stricto was adopted globally. Of course, people playing in their own gardens can do what pleases them, but please don’t mention the witchcraft of the Rudolph Steiner Biodynamic fascination.

On the subject of record temps, it’s interesting to look at the numbers put out by those Fox-watching tea-partiers at the NOAA.

Australia’s hottest (official) temp was in 1960. (How well I remember the heat of 1960!). Both poles recorded their highest temps in the seventies. After that, however, it’s back to grandpa’s day.

Every other continent had its highest recorded maximum between 1881 and 1937. It was present day Israel (1942) which got beaten out by Death Valley (1913) for second place, not Libya (1922) or Oz. At least Oz beat Spain’s 1881 Euro maximum.

Weather. I am on the mid north coast of NSW about 100km north of Newcastle, right now the wind is strong and the rain heavy. I drove to Port Macquarie today and my 4WD was being pushed sideways by strong wind, the ocean here and Port was white caps and serious waves.

Can anyone explain this: Ants. At my place there has been “moss” that stays all summer in small areas but starting last year 2012 the “moss” has extended to about 50% of 1880m2. I have discovered that it is not moss, the Ants lay long grass down and coat with a dark substance or cut grass into clippings, lay down, and coat. I suspect they are thatching a protective cover, why? This property has been in my family’s hands since the 1800s. I have not seen Ants doing this in my lifetime. They even create “moss” around certain areas but pick it up and it is grass based and lightweight and not rooted to the ground. Food? So is this behaviour related to global cooling? I believe that it is.

It may well have been hotter in the past, and the records would show it if they used the same techniques as we do today to measure temperature.

In my blog article, inspired/incited by an article on Warwick Hughes’ blog, I begin to address the elephant in the weather station; how our changes in our ability and techniques to measure air temperature let us measure more of the mere whisps of extremes.

In summary:

Suffice to say that the temperature readings obtained by changing anything in the way that temperatures are measured; present a discontinuity in the temperature readings. Therefore data before and after the change are not “alike”; they aren’t measuring the same thing. Which invalidates any subsequent processing which assumes that they are the same thing.

It is impossible, with any validity; to adjust past measurements so that they have a similar response to “air temperature” as does the modern equipment. And the meta-data associated with modern equipment and the collected data are woefully inadequate to adjust their “air temperature response” to be like those of equipment which it replaced.

The WMO (PDF) tried to tackle the lesser issue of changes to enclosures in 1998; but seems to have left nothing but unanswered questions and deferring the “solution” to somebody else. “Papering-over” the problem hasn’t made it go away. It has simply resulted in it festering, and the alienation of old records; making them irrelevant for comparisons with modern measurement. Certainly to the level of precision that would allow anybody to identify a real signal.

When I hear that “today was the hottest day on record in X”; I know that the “record” is only based on data that has been sufficiently continuous for at most a couple of decades. Indeed; in most cases a period shorter than what the WMO agrees to as being the period over which “climate” can be “measured”; 30 years.

28 Jan: Bloomberg: Adam Ewing: Norway Data Shows Earth’s Global Warming Less Severe Than Feared
After the planet’s average surface temperature rose through the 1990s, the increase has almost leveled off at the level of 2000, while ocean water temperature has also stabilized, the Research Council of Norway said in a statement on its website. After applying data from the past decade, the results showed temperatures may rise 1.9 degrees Celsius if Co2 levels double by 2050, below the 3 degrees predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“The Earth’s mean temperature rose sharply during the 1990s,” said Terje Berntsen, a professor at the University of Oslo who worked on the study. “This may have caused us to overestimate climate sensitivity.”…http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-27/norway-data-shows-earth-s-global-warming-less-severe-than-feared.html

27 Jan: ThisIsMoney UK: Peter Campbell: Energy fund designed to protect families from price hikes ‘could face Treasury raid’
A fund designed to protect families from rises in energy prices and guarantee investors’ returns on costly generation projects is open to being raided by the Government, it was claimed on Sunday…
But a clause has been put into the Energy Bill, which is currently being scrutinised by MPs, which allows the Government to take the money for its own uses instead, according to critics and energy firms…
The controversial measure was not included in the draft legislation, but has been added into the Bill currently being scrutinised by MPs.
It relates to a complicated arrangement designed to encourage power firms to build low-carbon electricity generators such as nuclear or wind by offering subsidies…http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2269220/Energy-fund-designed-protect-families-price-hikes-face-Treasury-raid.html

28 Jan: UK Daily Mail: Peter Tomlinson: What a waste! Picture from space reveals how new U.S. oil field is burning off enough gas to power Chicago AND Washington – because it’s cheaper than selling it
This incredible picture from space shows how the U.S. oil industry has boomed to such an extent that a gas field now burns as brightly as a major city.
The rapid increase in shale oil production means it is now often more economical to ‘flare off’ unwanted gas than to sell it.
As a result, one field in North Dakota, the state leading the energy revolution, is now burning off enough gas to power all the homes in Chicago and Washington D.C. combined…
(Photo Caption)
Wasting energy: This NASA satellite image shows how the gas being burned off at the Bakken oil field in North Dakota is almost as bright as the light emitted from major U.S. cities such as Minneapolis-St Paul and Chicago…
The trend, which is being replicated in other shale regions such as Texas, has made the U.S. one of the world’s worst offenders for gas flaring after the amount it burns off has tripled in the last five years, according to World Bank estimates…
Adam Brandt, a Stanford academic who studies greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, told the FT: ‘The situation in the shale oilfields is similar to the early days of the US oil industry.
‘Companies are in a race with their competitors to develop the resource, which means there is little incentive to delay production to reduce flaring.’
Flaring – which has increased emissions from North Dakota by around 20 per cent – has been a serious concern to investors and campaigners because of waste and damage to the environment.
Local farmers complain the constant fires are polluting the atmosphere and say they suspect state officials are granting exemptions rather than dealing with the issue…http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269517/The-picture-space-shows-U-S-oil-field-burning-gas-power-Chicago-AND-Washington-cheaper-selling-it.html

At the Moomba gas fields, one of the first recovery steps is to separate CO2 and release it to the air. I’m starting to wonder if this affects very local temperatures. It does not cause a light at night, though.

U.N. panel meets to shape the future of the CDM
LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters Point Carbon) – A U.N. panel will this week discuss a range of ideas targeting the survival of its ailing $215 billion carbon offset scheme for developing countries, amid record low offset prices and ballooning over-supply of permits…http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2157027?&ref=searchlist

Thank you JB. I have always wondered how the CAGW scam got off the ground. Assuming that there is a number of minds (like JBs) that believe myth ahead of observation and have few deductive reasoning skills, then we can see the origin of the scam.

Looking through the above I have to concede Saint Brookes of Erehwon does have his uses.

Whether he is in fact the sock-puppet of another commenter putting up dumb-ass “arguments” as straw men for easy destruction or whether he is a real person and dumb-ass in his own right, he certainly gives everyone the facility of taking a good kicking on our behalf.

However, he is not alone here in missing the bigger and more funadamental question. Why the hell should I or anyone else give a shit about any of this? I am freezing my door-knobs off and spending a vast proportion of my income on electricity bills in the process as a direct result of “Green” politics. I couldnt care in the least what the trends are. Nor could the many millions globally worse off than me. People are not only dying of hypothermia in previously developed countries but starving quite literally to death in other areas as adirect result of “Green” politics.

Explain why the real needs of the living should be trumped by the notional needs of those who have not and may never be born?

John Brookes, I imagine is not greatly interested in the comments he sees on the screen, but gets his kicks putting forth counter arguements to stir up more comment. Fair enough, in that regard he is doing a good job.

No, not a simpleton, a heckler. Someone who stands at the back or the sidelines and listens for some slip of the tongue they can shout out a de-contextualised retort to that steretypes the other as an “other”. He has done this to me once and I see him trying it on with others all the time. Hence the perpetual one-liners.

I’m a noob, so apologies if re-asking old questions.
I have a question for John Brookes, if possible:
lets say all goes well in the ‘war on carbon’. How will we measure that we have beaten climate change? What will the climate be like? If temp starts to decrease, how will we know it hasn’t just ‘stalled’ or that reduced temps are due to man’s corrective interventions?

Or is it all just about measuring carbon in the atmosphere – if that decreases, then we’re fine

John, you’ll be relieved to know that very few people are potty enough to believe that world climate can be manipulated. Climate alarmism is about adherence to faction and to a set of beliefs – a very different thing from believing. We see rituals, fetishes, taboos and lavish temple offerings – but we do not see a reduction in CO2, nor any effort made in that direction. Some dispute this?

Consider. Australia funds its whirlygigs and solar panels by gouging and exporting carbon. The people who buy that carbon are not using it for art installations. When we have to supplement our hopelessly inadequate whirlygigs and solar panels, we burn coal, albeit heavily taxed and very inefficiently in ancient facilities which waste up to 30% over new facilities.

When we finally have to dismantle the whirlygigs, for example, a partial de-commissioning cost is about 15%, but you’re left with concrete and underground wiring over enormous areas. What do we need to help junk all the junk? We need to burn coal – in old clunkers, because the money that should have been spent on making our coal power gen the best in the world has been spent on…God, what do they spend that money on?

To reduce CO2 we would need to do the same things people do with their computers and fridges and cars, whenever they have the money. We would need to buy new stuff. The fact that we are going to go on depending on coal, yet we have not renewed our coal power generation as a matter of extreme urgency, shows that nobody cares about the CO2. China builds modern coal facilities because it doesn’t think that wasting expensive coal is a good way bring down the USA – or a good way to achieve anything. What do you think?

When the climatariat are rioting for new coal and new nukes, you’ll know they care. They won’t – and they don’t.

And the ninth reason is that the greenhouse conjecture assumes a violation of the maximum entropy conditions of thermodynamics equilibrium, as necessitated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Standard Physics can easily be invoked to prove that the whole concept of WV and GHG supposedly jacking up the thermal gradient is false, because the thermal gradient would have been there anyway as a corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as explained in just 10 minutes here.

How about you, John Brookes, explain yourself with what you think is valid physics. I’m very willing to debate in a proper scientific manner, and am very confident that I can demonstrate exactly where your thinking is wrong. You might do well to start by reading my papers, articles and forum comments on the Principia Scientific International website. See what some of the 200 or so members say there about my points, which are all based on valid physics.

It seems to me that several of the discussion points provided here contradict each other. If heat waves are not an indicator of long term climate change, why bother even dredging up data on them? The graphs provided are merely adding noise to an issue that’s already saturated with it. In an attempt to stretch out her list Jo has only made things more confusing, at least for me. Can someone offer a clear explanation of whether heat waves are an objective measure of global climate trends?

If mainstream news sources are overhyping this link do a BETTER job at explaining it, rather than making the same mistake in presenting the information.

Actually, no, it is not possible to fully answer your question, Sawyer. Climate change is not based on science, but rather politics. If it’s convenient for the news media and the climate change people to use heat waves as evidence, then they count it. For years, a claim was made that weather and climate are different. Not so anymore unless it’s to the advantage of the AGW crowd. Technically, I believe the only VALID climate measurement accepted by AGW followers was the average global temperature. When that stopped going up, the heat waves, storms, etc were thrown in as evidence. Even blizzards became evidence of climate change and the “warming” was dropped. Since in 30 years, the science has gone from “ice age coming” to “heat wave coming” to “bad things are still coming” to “every variation in weather is now evidence humans have messed up the planet’s climate”, no, there is no clear definition. Even the definition of climate seems to have undergone revisions as needed.

If we return to the original “average global temperature” definition, heat waves do not measure climate trends. Warmer summers, colder winters yield exactly the same global mean as somewhat warmer summers and somewhat colder winters. That was the problem with using the mean over hundreds of data points. As I have said before, melting the poles and freezing the equator can yield the same mean as frozen poles and hot equator. When you use a sledgehammer statistic to try and prove a point, it really proves very little. Heat waves are “dredged” up in these discussions because the media and AGW insist on using them as proof of something. As far as science itself, not AGW, is concerned, heat waves mean it’s hot. That’s all. (Mainstream news, at least that I have listened to and read, is not interested in accuracy, so they can present whatever explanation sounds good. Science is bound by accuracy.)

Currently, all we know is the weather and the climate have both changed since the beginning of the earth. We do not know why, we cannot predict what changes will occur, and while people may find that disconcerting, it is what it is.

Why the wonderment that there was an Australian record temperature and no records in Australian states or regions?. We even saw the tail pinned on Simpsons Paradox. It is a bit like wondering why your stock has not gone up when the All Ords has?. ( Technically it is about joint probabilities of events that are correlated but to some extent independent.) Anyway, it seems fairly obvious that if you want a consistent measure over time you would use an area average. It is then fairly easy in principle anyway to compute global area stats and come up with numbers like 10 of the warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997 according to NASA – cold comfort?- I should pause at that.